fevers-and-mirrors
Und nein, natürlich lag dem jungen und mittleren Paul Simon Sarkasmus oder auch nur ausdrücklicher Humor nicht sonderlich nahe, und wenn er mal in die Richtung ging, dann oft direkt überbordend wie in „A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission)“.
Wobei „Kodachrome“ und „One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor“ (Warum habe ich den Blog eigentlich erst jetzt gefunden?!) ja auch nicht einer gewissen Ironie entbehren.
„Kodachrome“: We tend, as a species, to look at at the days of our youth through rose-colored glasses. We speak lovingly of „back in the day“ as „the good ol‘ days,“ singing: „Those were the days.“ As other songwriters said, „It’s the laughter we will remember/ whenever we remember/ the way we were.“
Other songwriters… not Mr. Simon.
When our speaker remembers „high school,“ he remembers it as an empty experience. What he did learn was „crap,“ and the method of thinking that was encouraged was so poor that today, „It’s a wonder [he] can think at all.“
The lousy grammar of the next two lines proves his point. He says, „didn’t hurt me none,“ which is not only a double negative but has an extra word. What he should have said was „My lack of education didn’t hurt me.“ But adding the extra/wrong word to a sentence about how he was not hurt by his lack of education, Simon cracks a joke; obviously, he was hurt in that regard. It would be akin to saying: „I’m not as dumb as you think I are.“
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)